Few Poets Beckon to the Calmly Good

Few poets beckon to the calmly good,
Few lay a hallowing hand upon the head
Which lowers its barbarous for our Delphick crown:
But loose strings rattle on unseason'd wood
And weak words whiffle round where Virtue's meed
Shrines in a smile or shrivels in a frown.

He shall not give it, shall not touch it, he
Who crawls into the gold-mine, bending low
And bringing from its dripples with much mire
One shining atom. Could it ever be,
O God of light and song? The breast must glow
Not with thine only, but with Virtue's fire.